


Tell Me That You're Still In Love With Me

by blak_cat



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-12
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 11:17:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4785380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blak_cat/pseuds/blak_cat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Laura and co try to regroup in a very broken situation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell Me That You're Still In Love With Me

_Tell me everything will be okay, tell me that you're still in love with me, please tell me how to get back into your heart, and there I shall remain 'til death do us part..._

\--

Her legs weren’t her own. They felt frozen solid and itching to move all at once. Her chin was quivering as someone else seemed to work her legs forward until she was bumping into the chair and fumbling with sweating hands and shaking fingers. Somehow she managed to wrangle the chair and sit in without falling to the floor. 

That didn’t mean her breathing was working at all as she sucked and sucked in shallow breaths and gripped the desk trying to calm down. _Stop crying, stop crying, stop crying._

“Laura, hey,” came Danny’s voice from behind. “It’s okay, you’re okay.” 

She was trying to be so soft and kind but God when she touched her it was all she could do to not jump 10 feet in the air and back away. Every second she spent breathing the same air as Danny, letting Danny put a reassuring hand on her back was an insult to Carmilla. 

“Sorry,” Danny muttered and she choked back another exasperated sob because she shouldn’t be apologizing. 

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Laura said frantically, running her hand through her hair, all too reminiscent of that day Carmilla stormed out the first time. 

This was so much different. 

Oh what had she done? 

“I just need—I need a second to—“

She was trying to catch her breath but she caught sight of Mattie on the ground and she thought she was going to suffocate. Danny didn’t let Laura’s flinches deter again as she held tightly to her shoulders and whispered all sorts of things about how it was going to be okay. 

“We have to—Carmilla, she—“ 

She lowered her head to the desk and let it sit there, gripping tightly and just letting the sobs out. Talking could wait, planning could wait, thinking could wait. The world needed to stop, just for a few moments, let her be. 

Kirsch was groaning behind them as was Laf and Laura knew she should check on them but curled up into her desk seemed like a fantastic place to stay forever. She’d betrayed Carmilla. She’d gone behind her back and gotten her sister killed. 

“I think,” Laf groaned. “We’ve got some residual ESP from the fish or something because this _is_ a headache.” 

“That was probably Carmilla’s pterodactyl scream,” Danny mumbled. 

“No,” they said. “Someone’s in pain, terrible, awful pain.”

“Great, Carmilla’s just _that_ pissed,” Danny said. “Broadcasting it to the entire campus.”

Laura forced herself up from the desk and wiped her eyes and refused to look at Danny, turning around in her seat to face the two of them rubbing their temples as they both sat up. 

“That’d be Carm,” Laura said with a cracked voice, attempting to mock her own peppiness but it hurt more than she’d thought. 

“Yeah, what the hell just happened?” Laf said, staring down at Mattie’s body. “Belmonde’s dead? Where’s Vordenberg?”

“He took off,” Danny said, removing her hands from Laura’s shoulders and it felt like a thousand pounds of weight had been removed. For now. 

“Still no Perry?” they said. 

Laura shook her head. 

“J.P. seems to have vanished too,” Danny added, standing up and gripping at her side.

Laura’s eyes seemed to be magnets for Mattie on the floor, completely still and covered in blood. The locket was in pieces on the floor not far from her, the shine from it seemed to have faded. Her lips were still slightly parted in her last words.

Her scalp tingled from where Carmilla’s hands had gripped and yanked and she could see the heat in her eyes and there was so much fury bubbling in those muscles, she could feel it. And yet Carmilla had released her, refused to hurt her or even to push her aside and crush something of Danny’s in repayment. Would she truly hurt them still? 

“So, Belmonde said she couldn’t get staked or beheaded, what gives here,” Laf said, kneeling down to the pieces of the locket. 

“Vampire horcrux as far as we can tell,” Danny said matter-of-factly.

“Huh,” they said, carefully prodding at the leftover pieces, slowly turning to dust before their eyes. 

“Is uh, she gonna be alright?” Kirsch asked, turning to look out the door, still ajar from Carmilla’s exit. “There’s patrols and stuff.” 

“I don’t think she cares,” Danny said.

“Well then, are the patrols gonna be okay? Our bros? Because I’ve been on the ugly end of her punches,” he said, getting up. 

“I don’t know, we’ll figure that out later, “ Danny said. 

All the while Laura was stuck, staring at Mattie. Five minutes ago she’d been up and walking around the room, making snarky speeches and bopping Carmilla on the nose like a doting older sister. 

And now she’s dead. 

_Because of you._

_I didn’t mean for any of this--_

_Murderer._

_This wasn’t how--_

_Betrayer._

“Shut up!” 

She’d yelled that one allowed but she didn’t care. She got up and started pacing wildly across the room. It was too hot in here. She threw the denim jacket off and let it smack against the wall. She rolled her sleeves up and bit her lip. 

“We need to do something with the—we have to move—she can’t…” 

Her own hand went up to her mouth and gripped tightly, trying to reassert control over rising tides within. Her insides were already drowning, one organ at a time was succumbing to thick darkness and her heart was next. 

“I’ll take care of the body,” Danny said, stepping forward. 

“Yeah, somehow I don’t think Carmilla would appreciate the chivalry there,” Laf said with an edge, looking up from the ground. 

“I don’t really care what Carmilla appreciates,” she said. “She just tried to kill me.” 

“Yeah well, can you blame her? I didn’t like Belmonde either but crap that was her sister,” they said. 

“I wasn’t aware we were taking sides here.” 

“We’re not, it’s just, cut her some slack.”

“Okay, so when she starts ripping out coed throats out there we should just throw her a pity party?” 

“She hasn’t hurt anyone yet—“

“Everyone just shut up please!” 

Laura was back to tears and barely controlled sobs, which she swallowed to force words out in her place. 

“I have caused immeasurable pain to the person I--,” she cut herself off, taking a second to wipe the back of her hand under her nose. “And now she is going to hate me for not only the rest of my life, but probably for the next six centuries of her own and I can’t—deal—with any of this if you guys are at each other’s throats.”

For the first time in the last ten minutes, Danny looked guilty, dropping her gaze and biting her lip. Laf sighed and sat up gingerly.

“I’ll take care of it,” Kirsch said quietly from the chair. “I can—I’ll bury her outside. I’ll find a good spot.” 

Laura could only nod. Danny stepped aside and Laf helped him lift Mattie’s boneless body up, arms dangling and legs not cooperating. Her head lulled back and Kirsch was carefully to cradle her upright like she might wake at any moment and find herself uncomfortable. 

“She was innocent,” Laura whispered to herself like realizing it for the first time. “Oh God, she didn’t do anything.” 

No one said anything and kept their eyes down as Kirsch moved carefully out of the room, angling at the door to keep from bumping her. His footsteps fell away but Mattie’s heavy perfume still lingered and Laura thought to herself _out damned spot!_

She took a seat again, across from Laf and wiped the drying tear stains from under her eyes. Would she ever see Carmilla again? She thought she might forget how to breathe if that were true. 

“So,” they said. “We don’t know where Perry is. Jeep is now MIA too. Carmilla’s no longer on our team and we still have no idea what any of these gates are or who killed the kids at the newspaper.” 

“Add a few innocent dead bodies and you’ve got it,” Laura said, clenching her fists. 

“Great,” they muttered and took to clasping their hands and staring at them. 

\---

Laura was violently rubbing her eyes, curled up awkwardly in her computer chair. The chaise longue held too many memories for her to sit there and pretend nothing happened, the chair in the corner Carmilla had practically claimed as her own and was drenched in her smell. She was too tired even for yawns and her eyes stung every time she blinked like it was the first time she did it in weeks. 

“Hey,” Danny said from the hallway, stepping into the room. 

Laura turned to see her hands with occupied with two green beer bottles, already opened. She sat down on the floor in front of Laura and offered her one. Laura looked at the label _Grolsch_.

“Don’t ask me how to pronounce it,” Danny said, reading her mind. “Kirsch picked them up from the Zeta house, said one of the brothers got them in Amsterdam.” 

“Thanks,” Laura muttered taking a sip. 

God beer was disgusting and she did her best to not crinkle up as she swallowed but Danny chuckled at her face. She repressed her own sad smile as she licked residual foam off her lips and then got the rest with the back of her hand. 

“There was no liquor but I figured any little bit of alcohol helps in times like this,” Danny said, taking a much bigger swig of her own without reaction. 

“A sedative and a time machine might be better,” Laura said, setting the beer down and taping absently on the glass. 

“I’m sorry,” she said. 

“Danny I can’t blame you for protecting yourself, that’s why I told you in the first place,” Laura said, ignoring the itch to reach out and squeeze Danny’s hand through memories of Carmilla’s burning eyes. 

“Yeah well,” she sighed. “I didn’t need to do it. I was just—so angry. I got those girls killed and she was gloating around the room and—I could have just taken off the locket and she probably would have backed off—“

“Listen,” Laura said. “We can’t go back. She was strung out on fish blood, we have no idea how she would have reacted. It happened, it’s over.” 

Laura was talking more to herself than Danny. She’d been thinking the same things. She’d saw it blame twenty different ways in her head and all of them ended with Mattie still alive and Carmilla still right next to her, where she should be. Every version of events in her head began with Laura keeping her mouth shut, not letting the weight of secret-keeping crack her to let it slip out.

So far the campus had been quiet. No one had screamed, there’d been no fires. Whereve Carmilla was, her rage was contained, at least for now. Or perhaps she’d just killed every single living thing on campus that quickly. 

Laura took another stale sip and cringed less. 

“You planning on camping on the floor?” Danny nodded to Laura’s pillows and sleeping bag over the floorboards. Laura turned red. 

“Oh, I was just…The couch got a little uncomfortable recently so I was experimenting with—“

“Sleeping close to Carmilla?” 

Laura looked down and rubbed her eyes again, trained in on the spot that once hid Carmilla, that once hid her sister. She and Carmilla had formed an unspoken pact in the night, allowing her to warm the ceiling above Carmilla’s would-be coffin below and lull her to sleep with the sounds of her heartbeat. Not that Laura wanted anyone to know that, Danny least of all. 

“It’s easier on my lower back,” Laura mumbled lazily, tapping the bottle again. 

They sat silent there for a while, Danny glaring off and on at the bed on the floor and Laura couldn’t fault her because she probably didn’t even realize it. She wanted to bad to be angry with Danny, to give Carmilla just that much. But there was nothing, not even the residual jealousy etched all over her face, none of it could bring Laura to irritating with her or even blame. 

Laura turned her head and fought off tears as she eyed the senet board, still mid game, sitting on the desk. Danny caught the sniffles because she turned back and scooted closer. 

“We were playing this,” Laura pointed to the board through a crack in her voice. “Less than 24 hours ago we were joking and she was calling me on cheating and we were talking and we—“

Had it been anyone else she would have let it flow, she would have ranted for hours about how badly she’d missed Carmilla’s lips and how much she smelled like rained on earth up close, how surprisingly warm her skin was under her fingertips. How much her hair felt like a forest as her fingers got lost in raven curls and waves and the way Carmilla shivered when her nails found purchase on her scalp. 

“It’s okay, you can let it out,” Danny said. 

“She kissed me,” Laura half sobbed out and took a breath. “And I kissed her back and we said we would talk when all this was done. We’d fix what went wrong.” 

Laura dropped her face into her hands and was thankful to find that there were no new tears. Perhaps her eyes were drying up, the aquifer that fueled them in her chest was running low after being torn out earlier today. 

“I hurt her, so, so badly,” Laura swallowed, lifting her head. “I can hardly breath when I think about her getting hurt but seeing her like that—I feel like everything in my body is just going to stop working and I’m—“

She cut herself off and viciously ran her fingers through her hair. Danny put a hand on her knee and squeezed with a thin smile but her eyes were kind. 

“She asked me weeks ago to run away with her,” Laura said. “Well, it was all hypothetical but I know if I’d said yes she would have packed up that night.” 

“That sounds like Elvira,” Danny said. 

“And it’s awful because I wish we had, I really do. But I know I would hate myself if I’d done it and I’m wondering which version of hating myself would be worse,” she said. 

Danny sighed and took another long pull of her beer before setting it down and wiping her mouth. She sat up to her knees and looked at Laura evenly. Her free hand joined the other on the opposite knee and she squeezed there as well. 

“I know as a lit TA I shouldn’t be encouraging the use of clichés but, we have to play the hand we’re dealt,” she said. “This is life right now and there’s got to be a reason for that.” 

“I never imagined you as the spiritualist,” Laura laughed a bit. 

“Well yeah that,” Danny rolled her eyes. “But also, what Belmonde said. Someone—someone set her up.” 

Danny sighed heavily and her shoulders slumped in penance. Enough guilt to go around perhaps, but there was enough comfort too as Laura put a hand to Danny’s shoulder and gave her the most reassuring look she could muster through puffy eyes and a blotchy face. 

“I keep going back to that chess metaphor,” Danny said, looking off. “You said Perry was calling her ‘the rook’? And the owl lady called the baron ‘the bishop’. Why does it feel like someone is playing a game and we did exactly what they wanted?” 

Laura felt her stomach curdle. She’d considered that too, for a second, but Danny’s face was serious and creased with worry and Laura felt herself go pale. If it was true, then they were the pawns, all of them, the Summers, the Zetas, the kids at the newspaper. They’d been sacrificed one by one. And if neither Vordenberg was a bishop and Mattie a rook then who was the queen? And who was the one playing them all? 

“Do you think,” Laura said carefully. “That if someone wanted Mattie dead then they’d want Carm dead too?” 

She swallowed what felt like pure bile as she watched Danny consider it. 

“Or maybe they want her alone,” she said carefully, eyes hardening as she seemed to realize the implication. “And they just got what they wanted.” 

They looked at each other in mirrored horror. No. They don’t know that’s true. This was conjecture and guesses and Carmilla was fine. Carmilla could protect herself…when she wasn’t completely vulnerable. She was alone and devastated and scared. 

Does she dare chance going out to find her? Would Carmilla truly kill her or any of them?

Laura knew without asking the answer was no. She would rage, she would destroy buildings or maybe even cities, she would break her hands on rocks and bleed herself out and starve herself in an effort to leave her rage as a scar for the world to see. She would kill herself first. 

But she deserved better than having Laura waltz right up to her and say _hey I’ve got another plan and I need you to trust me for like the 8 millionth time._

"It used to keep me up at night wondering the hell it was you saw in her," Danny said. "I know it sounds awful but damn Hollis, you have a type and it certainly isn't her."

Laura frowned. 

"But something about her keeps pulling you back, and maybe whatever that is will make all of this better." 

Laura locked eyes with Danny and they seemed to nod to each other as she felt her own gaze begin to harden with determination in a mirror of Danny's. They could fix this, they could still save as many people as they could. And maybe, just maybe, somewhere beneath 300 years worth of pain and lose that Laura had forced Carmilla to endure in a single moment, maybe beneath it all she still loved her.

**Author's Note:**

> Laura's chapters are always more logistical than Carmilla's (if we take my Carmilla oneshot from yesterday as a companion piece to this), which is interesting considering she is the least transparent when it comes to emotions. But I hope you liked it!
> 
> Song used in title/prologue: Until Death Do Us Part -- Alkaline Trio


End file.
